10-fold increase in SPPU’s accident insurance cover to its students

Pranita Roy

Friday, 27 July 2018

The varsity has revised the students’ accident insurance scheme from Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000 this year

Pune: Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) has increased by 10 times, the amount of accident insurance for students studying under university and affiliated colleges. The varsity has revised the students’ accident insurance scheme from Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000 this year.

Until now, students used to get Rs 50,000 from the university on death insurance claim of a student and Rs 5,000 for medical emergencies.

Now, students will receive Rs 50,000 for any accident like a natural calamity, road accident, electrical shock, etc. which are covered under insurance claim sans existing illnesses like heart problems and asthma which are not covered under general insurance.

Two committees, a students’ coordinating committee, headed by Rajesh Pande, a member of the management council and another committee constituted by Vice Chancellor Nitin Karmalkar which was chaired by Principal of Indapur-based college and member of management council in SPPU, Sanjay Chakane, together took the decision.

“Students will get this additional Rs 50,000 apart from Rs 50,000 given by the insurance company. So far, the students would get only the similar amount which has been approved by the insurance company. Now, with this revision, they will get anything up to the said amount as demanded,” Director of students welfare department, Prabhakar Desai told Sakal Times.

Students will get a total amount of Rs one lakh divided between the insurance company and the university.

Besides, students will no longer be required to apply at two places for insurance, i.e. insurance company and university separately. To ease the procedure, the varsity has made one channel, which means a student needs to only apply for it at the insurance company and university will accordingly transfer the amount to the company, said Desai.

“Students get injured during sports activities. In an incident which took place on Monday, a student was injured in the chemistry laboratory while performing an experiment. All such cases will be covered under this,” said Desai.

Desai also stated that if a student needs more than Rs 50,000, he/she should apply to the Vice Chancellor (VC) requesting for providing more amount by informing about the case, and accordingly, VC will consider the case.

“Many students did not apply for this scheme as the amount was small. But now, we are hopeful that more and more students will come forward and avail of the scheme,” added Desai.

In 2017-18, around 50 students had claimed medical insurance including death, injury, partial injury and other health problems.

“The university has enough resources to provide for this scheme and cover over seven lakh students studying under the varsity. During admission, we collect Rs 10 from every student which covers insurance. There are no specific criteria to avail of the scheme, an accident is accident, regardless of its severity,” said Arvind Shaligram, Registrar of SPPU.